


Experimental Magic

by Caiolainne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 15:51:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18153896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caiolainne/pseuds/Caiolainne
Summary: The one thing Harry Potter never thought he had to worry about was the threat of the muggle world. Taken by a muggle organization bent on defending themselves against magic in the wake of Grindlewald and Voldemort, Harry finds himself in possession of the power he needs just in time to face a new threat, one bigger than any the wizarding world has faced before....





	Experimental Magic

**Author's Note:**

> JK Rowling owns everything you recognize, the rest is just boredom and too much coffee. Don't sue, I have nothing but too much spare time and an overactive imagination.

**CHAPTER ONE**

Down the Rabbit Hole

 

When Harry woke, he woke knowing it was not the first time and yet he was unable to piece together exactly what had happened between the prick of pain that took him under while he examined the ceiling of Dudley’s second bedroom and the nauseating blur of too bright light he squinted into now with a pounding head, a mouth full of blood soaked cotton, and immovable metal cuffs binding him to the floor like a pinned butterfly. He tried to keep his breathing steady and strained to piece together the shards of memory just out of reach.

 

There was the pulsing roar of helicopter rotors and voices speaking in mechanical tones. He’d been taken by _muggles_? In all the years of hiding and careful planning, the days of breaking his back beneath Petunia’s endless list of tasks, the hours hiding from Dudley and his gang of thugs, the minutes of biting his tongue to stifle the screams as Vernon wrote his anger out in welts and bruises all to keep Harry “safe”, never once had anyone in the Order raised even a moment’s concern over non-magical threats. Harry had never even considered the possibility, not even during his darkest, most desperate bouts of self-pity had it occurred to him that the muggle world could be a threat to his life except possibly if Vernon let his temper get away with him someday.

 

It was just one more example of how impossibly buggered Harry’s life always seemed to get the moment he had a stretch of peace. After the invasion at the ministry and Sirius’ disappearance from Grimmauld Place, Harry had been forced to stay longer at the Dursley’s than expected to _keep him safe_ . Oh the irony that it turned out the exact opposite were true. No muggle would have found him at the unplottable, fidelius-protected Black family home. There hadn’t even been more than a deadbolt and a cheap security chain to slow down whatever agency or organization had taken him. And it had to be a group of some standing. They were co-ordinated and well-funded if they utilized helicopters in their getaways. _Merlin!_

 

Harry cringed weakly at the thought of what Dumbledore and the Order would have to face if they came for him. And then he remembered the surgical suite and the runes carved into the walls. He remembered the muted clipped tones of the muggles in lab coats as they plucked away at tablets and organized trays of tools that would have made Harry sick up if he knew what they were for. He remembered them injecting phials of fluid into an IV line and outlining runes in blue marker. He remembered the sickening crack of his wand as it was splintered into irreparable fragments. He remembered the strange disconnected feeling that came over him as his flesh parted beneath scalpels and darkened beneath tattoo needles but his brain could not register the pain his eyes told him should be consuming him. But perhaps worst of all, though the pain did not come, his skin still communicated the pressure of the restraints, the vibration of the branding needles, the tugging of the blade as it flayed him, and the invasive slide of hands palpating, measuring, and probing every inch of him between bouts of frantic typing. Like a horrid nightmare that had followed him from sleep.

 

 

Harry turned his head and wretched violently. Whatever he’d been given was wearing off. The pain he hadn’t felt had stalked him, waiting, and now it sunk its claws in deep.

 

“Sssh! Sssh!” A soft voice whispered, gentle but desperate.

 

Harry felt careful hands smoothing his hair off his brow but his eyes refused to adjust to the brightness. Something rough and cool wiped first his forehead and then his lips, cleaning away sweat and sick alike. He tried to work some moisture into his tongue from the sopping material packed into his cheeks despite the taste, but couldn’t manage it.

 

“Hush now, I will help you. I promise.” The soft voice soothed, “But you musn’t bite me. It won’t damage me in any lasting way if you do but swallowing my blood is not something you want to do accidentally. Blink twice if you understand me.”

 

Harry blinked twice. Cautious fingers, slim and delicate with elegant rounded nails pried his lips apart and carefully tugged the wads of gauze free. Harry turned away from his rescuer and spat what little of the vile mixture of blood and vomit that remained in his mouth onto the floor. Some of it dripped onto his shoulder and was quickly wiped away. He started when a straw prodded at the tight line of his lips and lunged for it immediately. It was only after warm, stale water washed away the foulness on his tongue and slicked the desert of his throat that Harry even considered the possibility that it might be dosed with something and that perhaps he should not have taken it so willingly. But then, it also occurred to him that his willingness hadn’t been necessary so far to any of the sundry tortures he’d been subjected to so why should it even matter at this point really?

 

“My name is Corri,” The soft spoken female voice whispered directly into his ear, so low it was a struggle to hear it even this close, “This room is monitored for sound and video, be cautious of what you say and do. I have been ordered to make the Offering to you – and if you agree I will do so – but you must understand the significance of both agreement and refusal before I will consider it. Do you understand.”

 

“Yes...” Harry croaked. His throat felt lined with razors. He coughed and tried to breathe slowly past the sting behind his eyes.

 

Corri stroked gently with the cool cloth along his arm, keeping her face low, “I am not human. Not muggle or Wizardkind. My people left this world for another of our creation some time ago and travel between them is rare. It is the only reason they will not kill me if I refuse them. But they _will_ punish me. Extensively. I have been here a long time, long enough for the limits of my physical endurance to be observed quite thoroughly. The same cannot be said of you. Every other test subject who has been subjected to the trials they have used on you has died. Some before they reach me, I’m sure. But of those who last this long writhe in agony for hours or days or weeks until they succumb to the fever or infection. For all their technology, and that they have cultivated potions and runes to their use, these muggles haven’t the active magical capability to treat the ill beyond what they could beg, borrow, or steal from your kind without drawing attention. Of those brought to me after lesser trials – those who have accepted the Offering – only one in two survived but they did not emerge unchanged. The Offering is not a simple spell or even a cure-all, it is a ritual of my people that initiates a complete transformation. It utilizes primal forces of magic to allow my kind to bind as blood those with whom we do not share it. You would no longer be completely human and without knowing what has been done to you I cannot predict what you will become instead. _If_ you survive it. The choice is yours, I will not force you nor allow you to be forced. But without it you will surely die. This is my truth. It is cold comfort and yet it is all I can offer you.”

 

Harry wanted to curl into a ball against the horror of the choice in front of him. Death or maybe death. Dying or giving up his humanity. _But he will have power the Dark Lord knows not._ Harry blinked slowly and tears rolled down his temples into his ears as he shuddered violently and a scream of helpless rage rattled in his chest, pushing to rip free but he bit it back. _And either must die at the hand of the other..._ He was the only one damn it! He was the _only_ one who could defeat that snake faced bastard! He couldn’t give up yet. Not yet. Not if there was even the slightest chance.

 

“Do it.”

 

“As you wish. When the change comes, don’t fight it. The only way this works is if you trust in me to carry you through it. If I lose my hold on your core before it is over you _will_ die.” Corri placed the side of her forearm against his chin, tilting the inside of her wrist toward his lips. Silver flashed past Harry’s hazy eyes and warm wetness trickled into his mouth, filling it with the coppery tang of blood once again. Corri stroked his forehead with her free arm gently just before magic electrified every nerve in his body, “I hope you make it, Harry Potter. Siri talks about you every day. I don’t want to be the one to tell him... Just hold onto me and let go of everything else ok? Please. Please... please...”

 

Harry’s heart soared and plummeted at once. Sirius! He was alive! No wonder he had never been found! But the likelihood that Harry would be found quickly had vanished with the knowledge his godfather was here and his illusions of possible escape crumbled. Sirius had possessed all of the same spell protections Harry had and some he didn’t since Harry was supposed to be carefully hidden. But he was alive and here and if Harry could just.... Pain. Heat. Itching. Tingling. Prickling. Fire. Ice. Suffocating. Foggy. Agony. Paralysis. Wave after wave after wave of sensation and deprivation rolled over him and Harry lost track of everything. He forgot who he was, forgot what he wanted, forgot the shape of his own body and the purpose of his limbs. It all became indiscernible static on his perception of self except one thing.

 

“Please... Please... please...” The murmuring chant held him like a tether in a storm, tying him to only one thought. Hold on. Just. Hold. On.

 

And he did. He held on until the last of the burn faded and all that was left was exhaustion gaping beneath his consciousness like the hungry maw of a beast.

 

“You made it, Harry.” The voice whispered, “Sleep now. You made it.”

 

And then he fell into nothingness again. Someday he was going to spend at least an hour, no – an _entire day_ – whinging about how often fate conspired to knock him out and _no one_ was going to interrupt him while he did it.

**Author's Note:**

> I am a horrifyingly sporadic updater. I do my best but writer's block is a thing.


End file.
